Letter from a friend about Obama's first pick for his staff

Now the hard work comes for Obama. I am incensed about his choice for Chief of Staff. It's the same ole politics as usual that he so scorned during his campaign.

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Dear friends,

Below is a series of notes via e-mail, between myself and a former boxing student of mine. He is a veteran educator whose name iis Neil Zagorin. Nevertheless, the recent victory by Barack Obama came up, quite naturally. With his permission,, I would like to share these ideas with you, as I feel that Neil had some very poweruk things to say.

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
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Dear Djata,

I appreciate your keeping me on the mailing list for djatajabs, and just want to say hello and wish you well. It's been a while since I've been in your gym. Life is busy. My beloved son Korie is in 1st grade. I'm still teaching. I still skip rope and shadow box, and hit a bag sometimes.

After training with you, it's possible to work out like this with more intensity. It's a good thing. I'll always appreciate your letting my son tag along to the gym, where he could see strong young men and women training to be tough but not mean.

Here's hoping that you and yours are well. Your blog is informative and stimulating. I'm not sure if you write with a particular audience in mind, but your posts are thought-provoking to a person who by virtue of European descent finds himself in the category of "white" (I appreciate the distinction you make between the two.) In your current post, you clarify that Senator Obama's election is not ground-breaking, since African-Americans have always contributed immensely to this society. This insight is an important one, one that I will share with my son.

Anyway, just wanted to drop you a line.Take care.

Neil
P.S. Still and all, it was very nice to vote for a winner last Tuesday.
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Hey Man,

What a wonderful note. Thanx for taking so much time to carefully articulate your feelings and ideas.

The blog is for everyone. Rarely do most people get to see or hear the outlook of an African American. Usually what they hear is sycophancy to "White Supremacy".

Now the hard work comes for Obama. I am incensed about his choice for Chief of Staff. It's the same ole politics as usual that he so scorned during his campaign.

Everything at the gym is coming along. Thanx for all of your kind and encouraging words. Remember, the ultimate job of the teacher is to get your charges to follow your ideals (e.g., hard work, care, discipline, and so forth). Obviously, you got that message from me, regarding your workouts. Of course, that is quite a reward for me, and shows why the idea of "merit pay" for teachers is foolish, since what one learns from a teacher may not necessarily sink in during a particular semester.

Much love to you and your family,
Djata
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Hi Djata,

I agree with you about the choice of Rahm Emanuel as chief-of-staff.

The mainstream Democrats are as wired in to Wall Street and the war industry as the Republicans. The Democrats have a legacy from the 20th century of attempting to represent people at the bottom of society when demand comes strongly from the bottom. I'm thinking of the Great Depression before the war, and the Civil Rights Era and anti-poverty campaigns after the war. There were good accomplishments and flawed accomplishments, but much of the effort was sincere.

Now there is no real demand coming from the bottom, although there's more than ample reason for it. But, Wall Street and the war industry still have a tight hold on the government's lapels. The Democratic Party retooled itself long ago to succeed in this environment, to forego attempting to balance the interests of the mighty with the needs of the many in order to wield power. President Clinton is the great success story of this tradition. Rahm Emanuel, though he may be a formidable political operator, looks to be cut from the same bolt of cloth.

This will be a challenge for President-elect Obama. I believe that he is one of a number of individuals high up in the Democratic party who would be willing to lead in the tradition of the New Deal and 1960s Democrats. But, they need something to come from the citizens to pull them in that direction, so they can get away with it politically.

Despite our nation's many problems, I feel it still has the potential to be a better place for many. So, I'm thinking about how I can play my part, though I don't know what that will be. Many hands will have to be put together. I'd like to keep in touch.

Have a good weekend,

Neil
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Al Marinez takes us on a brief journey of intellectual, emotional, and physical appreciation

They should have played “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” when Barak Obama was elected president of the United States.

Dear friends,

It is always special for me to be allowed to share the ideas of my good friend, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Al Martinez. Along with his wife and partner-in-life, The Great Cinelli, Al provides us with something about which to consider, at this important moment in world history. The article appears here in its entirety, but you should also click on the blog link at the end of the piece, in order to see photos of its good lookin' authors, as well. Enjoy!!!

G. Djata Bumpus
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When They Drove Old Dixie Down
November 6, 2008
by Al Martinez


They should have played “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” when Barak Obama was elected president of the United States.

It’s a song about a defining moment in the Civil War that saw the old South and all that it stood for going down to defeat.

They should have put the version by Joan Baez on a public address system and let it play over the massive audience in Grant Park like a marching song of freedom rising through the chilly night.

Everyone there and everyone in their homes and everyone all over the world should have joined in singing it. “The night they drove old Dixie down, and the bells were ringing…”

Its intention would not have been to reject the South of today but to acknowledge that the Dixie of slavery, segregation and hatred had been rejected in a new and enshrining moment of American democracy. A black man had been elected president of the United States.

I said hatred had been rejected, not ended. Our new president is as much a symbol as a reality. He represents equality and fairness. But even those who had been his loudest supporters can’t say that the rise of this intelligent, articulate man means that the nation has at last cleansed itself of ignorance and bigotry.

It’s still out there, folks. I bring you an e-mail sent by a woman with whom I have communicated for years who seems to have suddenly lost her mind. Call her Esther. I wouldn’t distinguish her by using her real name.

She wrote: “Make sure your guns are loaded because the blacks, oh excuse, African Americans, are going to be blasting through our front door…”

She wrote: “I won’t ever distinguish him [Obama] by calling him president. He is going to turn our U.S.A. into a Communist nation, and the Muslims will rule. They will shoot every Christian on sight…”

She wrote: “Now we are in for it. We keep a shotgun by our front door, leaning in a corner. We each have a loaded hand gun in our headboards…”

The existence of our Esthers sends chills through me, but they do nothing to dampen the glory of what this nation has accomplished, overcoming Esther to emerge as good and decent people.

Other e-mailers and telephone callers celebrated the election. One wrote, “I’m so proud to be an American, I can’t describe it. Proud in a way I never thought possible two years ago.”

“What a night,” a friend shouted, “what a time!” Newspapers sold hundreds of thousands of extra copies to those who sought a piece of history to take home and keep as a souvenir of Tuesday’s triumph; as proof of change.

Obama’s rise tells the world we have rejected the notion that the past is prelude to the future. We have overcome our past to create a new future, and now it’s time to dance in the streets. It’s time to sing. You know the tune: “The night they drove old Dixie down, and the people were singin’…”—about Obama, about the future and about a new place for America in this old and scary world.
http://almartinez.org/blog
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Okey Ndibe on Obama - Africa, and the world

Obama’s relationship with Africa is bound to be complex. While embracing him as an extraordinary politician with African ancestry, African nations ought to realize that Obama is, at core, an American. He has warned, for example, that the U.S. is going to reduce its foreign aid to poor nations...

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Okey Ndibe is currently an associate professor of English at Simon's Rock College in Great Barrington, MA. In 2002, he won the college's New Faculty Teaching Award. During the 2001-2002 year, Ndibe was a Fulbright Lecturing/Research Scholar at the University of Lagos, Nigeria.

Ndibe was the founding editor of African Commentary, a magazine published in the U.S. by novelist Chinua Achebe. Ndibe also served as a member of the editorial board of Hartford Courant. A piece he wrote in the Courant titled "Eyes to the Ground: The Perils of the Black Student," was chosen by the Association of Opinion Page Editors in 2001 as the best opinion piece published in any American newspaper. <

From 1997 to 2000, Ndibe was a visiting professor of English and Creative Writing at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut where he was named by the CollegeVoice, the college's student newspaper, as one of the college's "Five Outstanding Professors."

Ndibe has made editorial contributions to several publications in the U.S., England, and Nigeria including Hartford Courant, Transatlantimes Times, The Fabian Society Journal, Black Issues Book Review, BBC Online, Emerge, The Guardian, and now Nigerian Village Square
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Dear friends,

I am both enormously proud and honored to share with you the thoughts of my old and dear friend Okey Ndibe. On the link below, this longtime celebrated African scholar,, educator, and author gives us a glimpse into the realities of an Obama presidency, from an African perspective.

Please remember that, in spite of any gains that we make here in the United States of America, African Americans will never truly be respected, until our Mother continent, Africa, is respected.

One Love, One Heart, One Spirit,
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/okey-ndibe/barack-obama-and-the-black-phoenix-2.html
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African News: The Audacity of Madness?

Okey Ndibe keeps us up-to-date, regarding matters of the largest, single body of African people on the planet, the country of Nigeria...








Dear friends,

One of the major accomplishments of the recent presidential election was: It showed that our country's brave words about being a beacon of democracy is, at least, true, these days, in the voting booth. That, it seems, few other counrtries can claim. On the link below, Okey Ndibe keeps us up-to-date, regarding matters of the largest, single body of African people on the planet, the country of Nigeria. Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/okey-ndibe/the-audacity-of-madness-2.html
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Is an Obama Victory a "mortal wound" to White Supremacy?

What is a "white" person? Is it only people of European descent who attach that mean-spirited moniker to themselves? My experience has been that, as well, many Asians and Latinos refer to themselves as "white"...

Dear friends,

While journalists and other such pundits, during this election period, ponder over identity monikers for Senator Obama like "black" and "bi-racial", not a single one of them has ever raised a question about the term "white". To be sure, "white" is a mean-spirited word that people use in order to join an artificial "majority" group that takes privilege over many of their fellow citizens (who are called "minorities").

However, all of those who identify themselves as "white" are not of European descent. For example, many Asians and Latinos call themselves "white", as well. Still, a person can come from Romania yesterday, declare himself or herself "white" and inherit the legacies of the Pilgrims, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, along with privilege over me and those who look like me. That is why this is a "white supremacist" nation.

Now, most, particularly European American, people in this country are offended by the idea that they are "white supremacists", because they only acknowledge people who hide under white bedsheets and Nazi flags as such. Yet, the article on the link below, by a renowned New York Times columnist named Nicholas Kristof, albeit unwittingly on his part, points out how white supremacist thinking is so embedded in the cultural/psychic structure of so many American citizens that they are not even aware of the injustices to which they contribute. Moreover, if you ask a European American to stop calling himself or herself "white" that person will be taken aback, because it is disempowering for a person to "lose" his or her ability to be identified by the phony claim of whiteness (which proves that all arguments against "affirmative action" are disingenuous).

Nevertheless, the question of the moment may be: What will the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States do to White Supremacy here? What will it do to Israel - or neo-colonized South Africa, two nations that are still ruled under the hubris of White Supremacy?

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/opinion/30kristof.html
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